Understanding why Dr. Priscilla Coleman is right

Dr. Priscilla Colemanspoke at a talk on Thursday night in Toronto, courtesy of the deVeber Institute. It was fantastic. She does research into the psychological effects after abortion. She estimates that 20% of women will experience negative mental health effects.

They call it “26 Women Share their Abortion Stories.” But I’d call it “The Unhappiness we Nurture in the Name of Choice.” Whatever abortion is, it is not female empowerment by a long stretch.

PS. I really want someone (other than those fanatically dedicated to keeping abortion legal) to do the math on this notion that one in three women will have an abortion by age 45. I’d like to see it broken down by state/province. I’d like to see repeat abortions factored in. Any takers?

Comments

I’ve been trying to figure out this one for quite awhile. I’ve come up with a couple of solutions, but I’m not convinced (at all) that either of them are right.

The first: take an abortion rate of 16 abortions per 1000 women of reproductive age per year, and multiply that by 30 reproductive years (ages 15-45). That gives you a total of 480 abortions per 1000 women over the course of their fertile years. Given that about 40% of abortions are repeat procedures, 60% of 480 gives you 288 women per thousand who have had abortions, which is pretty close to 1 in 3. But that doesn’t take into account women who have more than 2 abortions. (Just how common are they?)

The second way: one baby is aborted in this country for every three born. So, not counting miscarriages, one baby in four is aborted. Now, the birth rate in Canada is approximately 1.6 children per woman. Times that by 1/4, and you get an average of 0.4 abortions per women, or 1 abortion for every 2.5 women. Again, this is an average.

Anyway, I figure this is more or less how abortion advocates come up with their numbers.